Apple Music reaches 38M subscribers, gained 2M in last month
Apple SVP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue provided a brief update on the state of Apple Music on Monday, saying the company's streaming music service now boasts some 38 million subscribers.
Cue revealed the fresh Apple Music figures during an onstage interview at the South by Southwest festival, saying the service recently gained two million new subscribers in a little over one month. Further, another 8 million are currently listening to Apple Music on a trial basis.
Adding color to the hard numbers, Cue said the combined subscriber bases of Apple Music and rival Spotify equate to more than 100 million members.
Last month, Spotify announced plans to go public, and in doing so revealed it has 71 million paying users. In 2017, the service recorded 159 million monthly active users who streamed 40.3 billion hours of content, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings show.
While 100 million people is a large group, Cue said there is plenty of room to grow. In his talk, the Apple Music chief estimated there to be about two billion people in the world who could be subscribers of Apple Music, Spotify or some other streaming service. Hammering the point home, Cue added that more than half a billion customers access the App Store every week, all of whom are ripe for subscription.
He went on to downplay the numbers game, saying Apple is more concerned about artist royalties. The amount of money artists make through streaming platforms has long been a hot button topic for the music industry, with megastars like Taylor Swift withholding their respective catalogs from services whose terms were deemed unacceptable.
"The real opportunity for music -- and it's not about Spotify or us or the labels, it's about artists -- is how do they get their music to everyone around the world and how do they get compensated for that," Cue said. "We both have to grow by significant amounts in order to get to the numbers which it should."
During his talk with CNN technology reporter Dylan Byers, Cue commented on Apple's recently announced acquisition of digital magazine subscription service Texture. He also dismissed rumors that the company was looking to purchase Netflix, instead saying Apple is "all in" on original content created by its in-house entertainment team.
Cue revealed the fresh Apple Music figures during an onstage interview at the South by Southwest festival, saying the service recently gained two million new subscribers in a little over one month. Further, another 8 million are currently listening to Apple Music on a trial basis.
Adding color to the hard numbers, Cue said the combined subscriber bases of Apple Music and rival Spotify equate to more than 100 million members.
Last month, Spotify announced plans to go public, and in doing so revealed it has 71 million paying users. In 2017, the service recorded 159 million monthly active users who streamed 40.3 billion hours of content, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings show.
While 100 million people is a large group, Cue said there is plenty of room to grow. In his talk, the Apple Music chief estimated there to be about two billion people in the world who could be subscribers of Apple Music, Spotify or some other streaming service. Hammering the point home, Cue added that more than half a billion customers access the App Store every week, all of whom are ripe for subscription.
He went on to downplay the numbers game, saying Apple is more concerned about artist royalties. The amount of money artists make through streaming platforms has long been a hot button topic for the music industry, with megastars like Taylor Swift withholding their respective catalogs from services whose terms were deemed unacceptable.
"The real opportunity for music -- and it's not about Spotify or us or the labels, it's about artists -- is how do they get their music to everyone around the world and how do they get compensated for that," Cue said. "We both have to grow by significant amounts in order to get to the numbers which it should."
During his talk with CNN technology reporter Dylan Byers, Cue commented on Apple's recently announced acquisition of digital magazine subscription service Texture. He also dismissed rumors that the company was looking to purchase Netflix, instead saying Apple is "all in" on original content created by its in-house entertainment team.
Comments
i simply don’t get all the griping about Apple Music and iTunes. They just work for me. I also switched to the yearly subscription model. $99/yr is a good deal in my book.
Could say the same about Amazon Music too, but they need to sort their relationship with Google out.
I'm not sure how much more platform agnostic you want.
It’s available in all cars that accept CarPlay and Android Auto, or Bluetooth, or (on models with a headphone jack) an AUX port.
Sonos has said its Sonos One will in time work with Apple Music natively, and so will any Bluetooth speaker. Once AirPlay 2 is out, I think a lot of third-party devices will pick up Apple Music compatibility.
IOW, apart from a web app, Apple Music is roughly as compatible with devices as any other service, though Spotify may have an advantage still in terms of “native” (on device) support at present. Web app and more “native“ support would also be great, though. Apple’s clearly playing a long game, and to be fair they have closed 80% of the gap despite having only been around for 2.5 years, compared to Spotify’s 10.
You might say that’s just two data points, but between the two of them, I’ve asked more than a dozen kids. Maybe my sample is atypical, but I doubt it.
https://www.imore.com/do-i-still-need-itunes-match-if-i-have-apple-music
I'm in the same boat. I use iTunes Match for all my CDs and (ahem!) concert recordings and use Apple Music along with it for sampling new music or albums I wanted to hear, but didn't have the income to buy.
I am now re-ripping my CDs to ALAC in preparation for the HomePod.
I'm just spit-balling here, but I think a portion of Apple Music subscribers exist simply because Spotify wasn't an option. Spotify or Pandora didn't launch in India, so I jumped onto Apple Music the moment it launched.
I don't think there may be many converts from Spotify to Apple Music, simply because people are comfortable with familiar things. If I'm used to Spotify, I'd stick to it.
Did your kids subscribe to Spotify before Apple Music launched?
Many people feel that Spotify has better algorithms for recommendations and a better UI than Apple Music, but while that may be true to some extent, I think most of it is because the people have used Spotify longer.
It's just like how I'm always lost when handed an Android phone - I don't want to put the effort to learn how to use it.
Spotify may have more subscribers to their music only service, but Apple will be doing a lot more than music.
It’s all about the bigger picture